Big Walker Mountain

[XCanytime]

Forecast Saturday looks fantastic. I plan on heading down Friday night after work to Lexington, bunking down, and driving the remaining 2 hours to the launch Saturday morning. XC to VT Airport is the goal. Bacil

[thermalup]

Greetings Bacil, Wish I were in there VA to join you at Big Walker this weekend. Hope to be back in VA to catch some air at BW in autumn. Please say hello to Jim Bogle for me and I hope he is feeling better soon (he just started chemo treatments a few weeks ago). He has done a huge amount of work on the launch area since my last visit a couple of years ago and he truly appreciates visiting pilots.
...::JG

[XCanytime]

Got to Big Walker launch around 10A on Saturday morning. Blowing STFI at 10 to 18 MPH. Shane Moreland and Doug Gladden were watching Kenny Tedder take an early morning flight. I set up quickly in anticipation of the goal flight with Shane of landing at the VT Airport. Launched at 11:30A and got up easily. Headed west and climbed up to 5K' MSL and thought I was golden. Paul Sydor and Andy Smart had joined me in the air, with Paul heading west towards the I-77 tunnel. Headed east towards the intended goal. As I ventured along the ridge the conditions changed to a NNE cross on the ridge and very little lift. Used all my ridge running skills to venture down to the Rt. 100 gap 10 miles east of launch. I surmised that the NNE facing knob of the gap would be producing some lift. The reality was that there was no lift and I had to land. There was one field on west side of Rt. 100 that was long in the north direction. Definitely an RLF. Had to figure 8 over some trees at the upwind end to burn off excess altitude. Had a nice landing and broke down and stashed the equipment in the weeds along the barbed wire fence. Turns out this property is privately owned by a hunting club. Lucky for me some fellow West Virginians pulled over to enjoy their Wendy's food in the shade of some trees on the shoulder next to the field. Long story short they ended up giving me a ride back the 12 miles to the LZ where my truck was parked. Paul, Shane, and Andy landed in the main LZ, with Paul making it to the I-77 tunnel and back and Shane making it down to the Rt. 100 gap and turning around after getting low. Retrieved the glider and went back up for a second flight. Launched at 5:30P into lighter conditions on launch and more clouds in the local area. Still found very little air working to the east. Decided to just boat around and enjoy the scenery. After a pleasant hour landed nicely uphill in the main LZ. Tommy Thompson and Tom King had nice flights and got to 6K' MSL to the west towards the I-77 tunnel. Kenny took another flight as well. Friday's conditions were bulletproof and I bet that it would have been cake to run the ridge up to the staging point opposite Blacksburg. The next time I fly Big Walker I will make sure the forecast and conditions will be a repeat of Friday. Bacil

[Dan T]

Nice flights Bacil! Nice write up too.